While it's a bit too late for our Back-To-School series, here's an announcement for those in education (student, teacher, parent, or administrator) who use iWeb to create school or personal websites.

Jumsoft has announced five new iWeb themes specifically for education. The iWeb Education Themes run the gamut from Primary (at right) and Teens themes for younger students, Cool Class for everyone, and College and University for those in the post-secondary educational world.

Each theme consists of a number of templates for the various page types found in iWeb: Welcome, About Me, Photos, My Albums, Movies, Blog, Podcast, and Blank.

The themes are available for US$9.99 each, or as a package for US$29.99. iWeb 2 is required to use the new themes.

Although I've written a book about iWeb, I often tell my clients to avoid using it for their websites if they're planning on hosting anywhere but on MobileMe. Why? When you post to MobileMe from iWeb, you "Publish" and your site is uploaded. Minor changes to a site only take a few seconds to upload, since iWeb uploads only the changed files to your web server. That doesn't happen when publishing to other servers. Instead, you publish to a local folder, and then usually upload the entire folder to your web server. That can take a long time with a large site.

Plyxim's Easy iWeb Publisher 3.0.3 fixes that problem. The shareware ($7 donation requested) application makes it simple to publish to any web host. It's an ftp client that takes the local folder you've published your iWeb site to, compares it to the folder on your web server, and then uploads just the files that have changed.

I've found that Easy iWeb Publisher works much faster than most dedicated ftp clients when syncing iWeb files that have been changed, added, or deleted. Until Apple fixes iWeb '08 to make publishing easier for people who don't use MobileMe, this is a great way to work with your own hosting.

According to Apple Support documents, personal domains will be kept intact with MobileMe. Blogger Sean Sperte noticed a "personal domain" option while watching the MobileMe quick tour. That prompted some investigation which led to this support document. Sure enough, it confirms that .Mac personal domains will remain untouched by the change:

"...If you have a personal domain setup for your iWeb site, it will continue to work without changing any settings at your registrar."

Thanks, Apple!

[Via Geek&Mild]

Just as Firefox users were upgrading to version 3 last week, many people started to miss their iWeb-created galleries as they just disappeared. Well, one iWeb user has been doing extra work to fix Apple's? (erm... Mozilla's?) problem. Joshua Ochs has posted an in-depth article on his site describing exactly what is going on -- he also provides a fix in the form of a script to patch iWeb.

Joshua says that the problem is neither with Apple nor Mozilla, but with a JavaScript library called "Prototype" which is used by iWeb. Right now there are two ways to fix the problem (neither of which are supported by Apple): you can use the information on Apple's Discussion Board, or you can download Joshua's script -- both seem to work and are free.

[via ArsTechnica]

iWeb 2 (the iLife '08 version, that is) comes with an assortment of 26 different themes, but if you're tired of trying to mod the Comic Book theme for your new blog, you may want to look at ten new iWeb themes from Jumsoft.

There's a good assortment of styles in the Jumsoft collection. I personally find the Teddy theme to be a bit twee and Flowered World is too feminine for my taste, but YMMV. My personal faves from the new collection are the sparse and paper-like Simple Info, and the pastel and plastic Business. An installer app is included to make sure that your new themes end up in the proper place on your Mac.

Jumsoft sells each theme for $9.99 or you can buy the entire pack of ten themes at a 30% discount for $69.99. If you're an iWeb fan and want some additional design options, take a look at the new themes.

In addition to releasing the iWork update last night, the updated status on MacBook Air and Apple TV today; Apple just now issued an update for iWeb '08. In Apple's normal long-winded explanation of the update, they say "This update addresses compatibility with Mac OS X."

The 17.2 MB iWeb 2.0.3 update can be downloaded through Software Update (Apple Menu > Software Update) or by downloading the update package from Apple's support downloads website.

Thanks, Adam!

The folks at Apple have had a busy day. iWeb 2.0.2 is now available, with the following changes:

"This update to iWeb addresses issues with upgrading iWeb 1.x websites, and fixes some common publishing problems, and supports general compatibility issues."

I haven't experienced any issues with iWeb. If you have - and if this update provides the fix - let us know.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

The new app smell has hardly left iWeb '08 and already Software Update brings a dot rev for it. iWeb 2.0.1 'addresses issues with upgrading and publishing iWeb 1.x websites.' Rather terse, as most of the recent Apple update descriptions have been lately.

If you've been having trouble with iWeb 1.x websites in iWeb '08, this update is for you. Download here or through Software Update.

Thanks, Robert.

For most users, iWeb keeps things simple by creating and managing a single, all-encompassing site file stored in your home directory. The downside for anyone who would like to create more than one site with iWeb, however, is that the app doesn't offer any easy way to do so; users have to drill into ~/Library/Application Support/iWeb/ and either manually move or delete the single site file in that folder, or pick up an app like Multisite for iWeb or iWebSites. Both of these apps allow you to easily create independent iWeb site files that can be published to different local folders and subsequently uploaded with external FTP apps to anywhere you chose.

Fortunately, both apps have just been updated to work with the new iWeb '08, though note that iWebSites is at a 2.2 alpha stage, as the developer isn't positive all the kinks have been worked out yet. While I haven't used either of these apps, a quick perusal of their features sets reveals that iWebSites has a unique trick up its sleeve: it can merge two different iWeb site files into one, though it apparently can take a while. Anyone have experience with these apps?

Multisite for iWeb is available from Clarkwood Software for $19.95 with a demo available, while iWebSites is offered as donationware from Cocoadrillo Software.

I need to come right out and say it: I am really, really excited for iWeb and all the new .Mac changes. With the first version of iWeb, Apple didn't seem to quite 'get it' yet; everything you could build into your pages had to more or less come from your Mac desktop. In a web 2.0 world though, that just doesn't cut it for so many aspiring iWeb users. Many of us have Twitter accounts, pictures on Flickr and stuff we create at zillion of other sites that we'd like to integrate into a personal website, and iWeb 2.0 reveals that Apple finally understands this.


Finally melding the power and ease iWeb brings to publishing your Mac's media with the rest of the internet is iWeb's arguably biggest new feature: Web Widgets. While this page is a little skimpy on details, we can now embed code snippets from the endless community sites cropping up on the web into our iWeb pages. As an awesome bonus I can't wait to see in action, iWeb also offers a live preview mode that will include these widgets, so you can see your site in action and be sure everything gels before publishing.


This feature doesn't get its own page at the new iWeb site, but hopeful iWeb power users will likely appreciate the fact that you can now publish your sites to personal domains. Details are even slimmer for this one, but it sounds like Apple finally shared some of Mac OS X's built-in FTP abilities with iWeb, allowing us to set up our own personal sites for one-click publishing.

Attention all those waiting for .Mac to receive some much-needed attention, your wish (or at least some of your wishes) have been granted. Apple's press event is still wrapping up as I write this, but the mac.com site has already updated with the changes Steve Jobs announced today, along with some tips on how to use a few of iLife '08's new features (as of this writing, however, the iLife site has not updated yet). One of the biggest changes to .Mac is a 10x storage increase for individual accounts from 1GB total for .Mac mail, iDisk and websites to a whopping 10GB. While total monthly bandwidth transfer was previously at 250GB, I haven't seen any details on whether that has increased (though I assume - or at least hope - it has). As a nice bonus, the attachment size limit on inbound/outbound .Mac email messages has doubled from 10MB to 20, bringing it up to par with Gmail and other services.

[Update: Woops, my bad. Previously, .Mac members had 25GB of monthly transfer, which has now been raised to 100GB.]

[Update 2: I just signed into my .Mac account online to see the new storage is already available to me. Since I previously paid for extra storage, I now have 20 GB available to split between Mail and my iDisk. At least one commenter has confirmed this as well, but users might still see this get rolled out slowly until the 14th like Apple originally specified.]

While iLife '08 is shipping today (though no word yet on availability in brick and mortar stores), .Mac storage will be increased for all users by August 14th. Until then, you can enjoy some of the new tips being published on how to leverage the new iLife and .Mac features, such as publishing iWeb sites to your own personal domain and publishing photos from the new iPhoto to the hot new Web Galleries.

You can be sure we're all getting our hands on copies of iLife '08 as soon as possible, and reviews of all the new features will be coming as fast as we can write them.

Realmac Software today has released the much-anticipated new version of RapidWeaver, their powerful WYSIWYG software that does a great job of filling the gap between iWeb and Dreamweaver. This new v3.6 ushers in a significant list of new features, such as:

• Themes Styles - no more digging in HTML and CSS to customize your theme (unless you really want to)
• 6 completely new themes
• Snippets - manage chunks of frequently used code instead of copy/pasting or constantly re-typing
• New Flash Slideshow - completely rewritten and can now pull images from a Flickr feed
• Improved blog, including tags and inline comment support
• Easy creation of Lists
• Detailed Publishing
• And much, much more

Also, due to RapidWeaver's "skyrocketing" popularity, RealMac Software introduced a redesigned website today that includes a full-featured add-ons section where users can browse themes, plug-ins and code snippets, which of course also means 3rd parties nowhave one central RapidWeaver community where the can highlight their products.

With everything involved, I can completely understand Realmac Software's decision to make v3.6 a paid upgrade - current users (including MacHeist owners) can purchase a v3.6 license for $25, while a full license costs $49. A demo is of course available, so head over to the shiny new Realmac Software site to see everything RapidWeaver has to offer.

iWebFlinger is great for those who want to use HTML to customize their iWeb sites, but they neither have nor want a .Mac account with which to publish.

On the customization front, this useful tool allows you to insert code into your iWeb sites by wrapping it in a specific tag, as well as customizing the site-wide header and footer with dedicated chunks of code (pictured).

As far as getting your recently-created iWeb site to where it's going, iWebFlinger's FTP features are pretty handy. Your password is stored in the system-wide Keychain, and you can even upload a favicon (the neat little custom icons that appear alongside a site's URL in the address bar). iWebFlinger also has the option to be smart about exactly which files it needs to upload and replace, which can save a lot of time when you make additions or changes to your site.

iWebFlinger is donationware from Chris J. Shull, and it's available at his site.

Over at Informit, Ryan Faas posts about five shareware alternatives to iWeb. I spent a bit of time using iWeb when it first shipped but quickly abandoned it when it became clear how slow and clunky it was as a development tool. Although iWeb produces some beautiful pages, it wasn't useful enough for me to make up for its operational difficulties. So it was nice to stumble across this list of alternatives including programs like Sandvox and RapidWeaver and revisit a space that I had more or less already written off.

I saw a del.icio.us/popular bookmark fly past NetNewsWire for the GarageBand 3 Hot Tips section of Apple's site, and wondered if Apple started posting tricks in those pages that might actually be useful. Sure enough - they have. Check out the Hot Tips sections for iWeb, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and GarageBand. I never knew, for example, that you could simply drag a clip from iMovie's clip bin or even timeline onto the QuickTime icon in the Dock to export and re-encode said clip. How about that musical typing keyboard in GarageBand, or the app's ability to tune your guitar or bass? These Hot Tips pages probably have a little something for all levels of iLife users, but feel free to post your own hidden gems that you've found if you think Apple missed something.